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2
Actus reus

Chapter Overview

Introduction 15
Actus reus: the law 16
Making sense of actus reus 16
Key actus reus principles 17
Actus reus and causation 19
Actus reus in criminal justice practice 21
Example I: the construction of crime 21
Example II: actus reus, the police and PACE 23
Example III: actus reus and the Crown Prosecution Service 26
Example IV: actus reus, victims of crime and criminal justice 28
Discussion and conclusions 29
Further reading 31

Chapter Aims

After reading Chapter 2 you should be able to understand:

• The basic meaning of actus reus

• The key criminal law principles which are included within actus reus
• The meaning of factual and legal causation in the criminal law
• How actus reus is represented in crime statistics
• How the police use actus reus in criminal justice practice
• How the CPS use actus reus in criminal justice practice
• How victims of crime who report actus reus are treated by the police and CPS
• How the evidence on actus reus in the criminal law and criminal justice fits in with
the theoretical models introduced in Chapter 1

Introduction
In this chapter, the concept of actus reus, or the ‘guilty act’, will be explained and
analysed. In Chapter 1, it was stated that the term ‘actus reus’ meant ‘guilty act’ – ‘it
identifies the conduct which the criminal law considers harmful’ (Herring 2006: 86).
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16 General principles of criminal law

But actus reus is not as straightforward as this. The first part of this chapter uses
case law and statute law to explain the rules of actus reus in more detail. The second
part of the chapter discusses the ways in which the concept of actus reus is used by
criminal justice – using the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as
examples, as well as considering crime victims’ relationship with these agencies.

Actus Reus: The Law

Making sense of actus reus

DEFINITION BOX 2.1

ACTUS REUS

The external behaviour or conduct which is prohibited by the criminal law.

Actus reus means more than just ‘guilty acts’. It also includes a range of other
behaviour requirements, defined in each criminal offence. For example, the actus
reus of theft is taking someone else’s property, and the actus reus of murder is
unlawfully killing another person. But, as these two examples show, the types of
illegal behaviour vary greatly between different types of offence. Clarkson
(2005: 13–14) splits actus reus up into two types of offence. First, there are
conduct crimes, which involve doing or being something illegal – for example,
possessing illegal drugs. Secondly, there are result crimes, which involve causing a
result which is illegal – for example, causing someone’s unlawful death as part of
a murder or manslaughter offence. Herring (2006: 85), meanwhile, distinguishes
between four different actus reus requirements – the ‘four Cs’:

• Conduct. Here, the actus reus involves illegal behaviour – for example, perjury, a crime
which involves lying when giving evidence in court.
• Circumstances. Here, the actus reus involves behaviour done in a particular scenario
which makes it illegal. For example, the crime of criminal damage involves damaging or
destroying property belonging to someone else, so the key circumstance here is that the
property does not belong to you.
• Context. Here, it is an internal or ‘state of mind’ element which makes the behaviour a crim-
inal offence. For example, the crime of rape involves sexual intercourse, but done without
the victim’s (from now on referred to by the letter ‘V’) consent, which makes it illegal. Here,
V’s consent is not something which can be ‘seen’. It is their state of mind that counts.
• Consequences. Here, the actus reus involves producing an illegal result through behaviour –
for example, murder, where conduct causes the unlawful death of someone else. If the
consequence was not caused by D’s behaviour, the offence is not proved (e.g. White
[1910] 2 KB 124).
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Actus reus 17

Since the term ‘actus reus’ covers so many different types of criminal behaviour
in the criminal law, most criminal offences will only have some of the ‘four Cs’,
not all of them. For example, context is not relevant to the crime of murder – D
would still be guilty of murder even if V asked, or even begged, D to kill them, as
long as all of the actus reus and mens rea requirements were present.

STUDY EXERCISE 2.1

Using an Internet statute database, find one example of an offence containing a

‘conduct’ element as part of the actus reus, one example of a ‘circumstances’ offence, one
example of a ‘context’ offence, and one example of a ‘consequences’ offence.

The next part of this chapter considers some of the key principles of actus reus
as it operates in practice.

Key actus reus principles

No mens rea without actus reus

Often, in the criminal law, a crime is committed when there is a combination
of actus reus and mens rea (the guilty mind required for each criminal offence –
see Chapter 3 for more details). The actus reus for each crime must be estab-
lished. It is not enough that the mens rea for the crime was present, if the actus
reus was not committed as well (Hensler (1870) 11 Cox CC 570; Deller (1952)
36 Cr App Rep 184). The main reason for this is that the criminal law in
England and Wales, as Clarkson (2005: 20) explains, insists on some expression
of someone’s criminal thoughts through their actions before it will intervene to
punish them.

Voluntary acts
Not all illegal acts count as actus reus. Acts must be voluntary before they can be
considered as criminal behaviour. If D has no control over their physical actions
for some reason, and commits a crime while ‘out of control’ in this way, then there
is no actus reus. In Hill v Baxter [1958] 1 QB 277, the Court of Appeal stated that
if D was attacked by a swarm of killer bees while driving, and the bees caused
D to lose control of the car and hit a pedestrian crossing the road, D would not
commit any actus reus because their actions were not voluntary.
In a situation like this, D is conscious, but has lost control over their physical
actions. In other cases, though, D might be either partly or completely uncon-
scious. For example, D may be sleepwalking, or suffering from various medical or
psychological conditions, such as hypoglycaemia (Simester and Sullivan 2007).
The ‘voluntary act’ principle can apply in these circumstances to remove the actus
reus, just as it can where D is fully conscious.
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18 General principles of criminal law

Actus reus and ‘status offences’

Actus reus does not have to be about doing something. It can also be about
status – being something or somewhere that is prohibited by the criminal law, or
possessing something that is prohibited. Examples include possession of a pro-
hibited drug (Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 s. 5(1)). Occasionally, the lack of the
requirement of voluntary action can lead to what seem to be very unfair convic-
tions under status offences, where D appeared to have no control over the situa-
tion. Two good examples of this are Larsonneur (1933) 24 Cr App Rep 74 and
Winzar v Chief Constable of Kent (1983), The Times, 28 March.

Actus reus and omissions

In a few situations, someone can be convicted and punished for not doing some-
thing, that is for an omission rather than an act. The courts have made people liable
for omissions, where the omission has caused a crime, in the following situations:

• Where D has voluntarily agreed to take care of V, but has failed to take reasonable steps
to do so (e.g. Stone and Dobinson [1977] QB 354);
• Where D, a parent, has failed to look after their child to a reasonable standard (e.g. Downes
(1875) 13 Cox CC 111);
• Where it is D’s duty to do something as part of their job contract, but D does not do it
(e.g. Pittwood (1902) 19 TLR 37);
• Where D has duties as part of their public office (e.g. as a police officer), but does not
carry them out (e.g. Dytham [1979] QB 722);
• Where D has created a dangerous situation accidentally or unknowingly, but then realises
that it is dangerous and does not take steps to remove the danger (e.g. Fagan v
Metropolitan Police Commissioner [1969] 1 QB 438; Miller [1983] 2 AC 161; Santana-
Bermudez [2004] Crim LR 471).

In some cases there seems to be very little difference between an act and an
omission. For example, in Speck [1977] 2 All ER 859, D was guilty of gross inde-
cency with a child because his failure to stop her doing what she did was an ‘invi-
tation to continue’ the gross indecency. On the other hand, in Airedale NHS Trust v
Bland [1993] AC 789, the House of Lords decided that a victim of the
Hillsborough disaster who had been in a coma for three years and who had no
chance of recovery should be allowed to die by doctors ceasing to feed and med-
icate him through tubes, and stated that this would be an omission (which would
not lead to criminal liability for murder) rather than a deliberate act of killing by
the doctors at the hospital (which would lead to liability).

STUDY EXERCISE 2.2

Compare and contrast the arguments of Ashworth (1989) and Hogan (1987) on how far
liability for omissions should go in the criminal law. Which argument do you think is
better, and why?
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Actus reus and causation

DEFINITION BOX 2.2

CAUSATION

The criminal law principles requiring D’s actions to be connected to the outcome
which is prohibited by the criminal law.

Result crimes require D to cause a prohibited consequence before liability can be

proved. There has to be a ‘chain of causation’ between what D did and the pro-
hibited result. For example, for murder and manslaughter, the prohibited result is
the unlawful death of another person. There are two types of causation in the
criminal law. These are factual causation and legal causation. Both factual and legal
causation need to be proved before causation can be established.

Factual causation
Factual causation is sometimes known as ‘but for’ causation because proving it
involves asking the question: if D’s act had not happened, would the prohibited
result have occurred? For example, in White D put cyanide into V’s lemonade in
order to kill her. V died shortly afterwards but the cyanide was not the cause of
death – she had had a heart attack. V would have died regardless of D’s act, so the
factual chain of causation between D’s act and V’s death was not there. Dalloway
(1847) 2 Cox CC 273 shows that where D could not have done anything to pre-
vent V’s death, they are not guilty because factual causation was not present –
even where, as in this case, D’s conduct was blameworthy in itself.
For factual causation, D’s act does not have to be the only cause of the prohib-
ited result, or even the main cause. It just has to be an ‘operating and substantial’
cause of the result. In Pagett (1983) 76 Cr App Rep 279, the main cause of V’s
death was the police firing bullets at her, but D was still guilty of manslaughter
because he had been using V as a human shield while firing at the police at the
time of V’s death. If a reasonable act of self-defence, or in the execution of duty,
by a third party against D’s act causes V’s death, then the chain of factual causa-
tion is not broken. However, in Environment Agency v Empress Car Co (Abertillery)
Ltd [1999] 2 AC 22, D was convicted of polluting a river, even though a third
party had maliciously and deliberately opened the tap on D’s tank of diesel, caus-
ing the diesel to leak into the river. The House of Lords said that as the vandalism
was foreseeable by a reasonable person, D had still caused the prohibited out-
come, despite the voluntary damage caused by the third party here.

Legal causation
Proving legal causation involves asking the question: if factual causation is
present, are there any other legal principles which will break the chain of
causation, and remove D’s liability for the prohibited outcome? First, was there
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20 General principles of criminal law

an independent and voluntary act by a third party (i.e. not D) which broke the
chain of causation? In Pagett, it was the police which directly caused V’s death by
shooting her. But they only did this because D, who was holding V hostage, had
shot at them first. As a result, the Court of Appeal decided that the police’s act
was only a ‘reflex’, not a voluntary independent act. The police firing at V did not
break the chain of causation and D was still guilty of manslaughter.
A second category of ‘third-party intervention’ involves V dying after receiving
poor medical treatment for injuries which have originally been caused by D.
Smith [1959] 2 QB 35 stated that if what D did is still a ‘substantial and opera-
tive cause’ of V’s death, even poor medical treatment will not break the chain (see
also Cheshire [1991] 3 All ER 670 and Malcherek [1981] 2 All ER 422). On the
other hand, doctors’ treatment of V in Jordan (1956) 40 Cr App Rep 152 did
break the causation chain because the court decided that the treatment had been
‘palpably bad’. D was therefore not guilty of causing V’s death – but Jordan was
an exceptional case in terms of how bad the doctors’ treatment of V was.

STUDY EXERCISE 2.3

Is it ever fair to allow bad medical treatment by doctors to break the causation chain? If
so, how bad would the medical treatment have to be?

The third category of ‘third-party intervention’ cases involves situations where

D has assisted V to take drugs in some way, V has voluntarily taken the drugs,
and V has died as a result of taking them. On the basis of the discussion above,
D should not be guilty of causing V’s death because V has taken the drugs of their
own free will, and so the chain of causation has been broken. This was what was
decided in Dalby [1982] 1 All ER 916. After some uncertainty in the law, the
House of Lords resolved the confusion in Kennedy (No. 2) [2007] 3 WLR 612 by
stating that where D prepares drugs and gives them to V to take, and V dies as a
result of taking the drugs, D is not guilty of manslaughter as long as V made a
‘voluntary and informed’ decision to take the drugs.
A fourth category involves V, previously injured by D, contributing to their own
death by some kind of neglect or intervention. The basic rule here is that D has
to ‘take the victim as they find them’. In other words, any physical or psycholog-
ical characteristics which might make V more vulnerable to being harmed are
irrelevant as long as what D did is still a ‘substantial and operative cause’ of V’s
death. This principle is illustrated by Holland (1841) 2 Mood & R 351, Blaue
[1975] 3 All ER 446, and Dear [1996] Crim LR 595.
Where V is injured, or killed, trying to escape from D, the escape will only
break the chain of causation if it was not ‘reasonably foreseeable’. So, if an ordi-
nary person who was present at the scene would not have expected V to try to
escape, then the chain of causation will be broken (Pitts (1842) Car & M 284 and
Roberts (1971) 56 Cr App Rep 95). However, D must have actually committed a
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Actus reus 21

crime which caused V to try to escape (Arobieke [1988] Crim LR 314). Causation
can also be proved where D frightens V to death. D can still be liable for murder
or manslaughter in such a case (Towers (1874) 12 Cox CC 530 and Hayward
(1908) 21 Cox CC 692).
Apart from this list of principles of legal causation, there are two other topics
that are relevant in this area of the law. These are the issues of transfer of malice
and contemporaneity. These topics will be covered in Chapter 3.
The next step is to examine the relationship between actus reus principles and
criminal justice practice. The following section uses the roles played by the police
and the Crown Prosecution Service as case studies to examine the relationship
between actus reus in law and in criminal justice. As an introduction, though, the
discussion takes a brief look at how crime is defined, and the relationship between
the actus reus in law and the criminal statistics which form the basis of what is
known about crime in England and Wales.

Actus Reus In Criminal Justice Practice

Example I: the construction of crime

As shown in Chapter 1, there is no behaviour which is automatically criminal.

Behaviour must be criminalised in either common law or statute law, and a range
of individuals, social groups and factors play a part in deciding which behaviour
will be outlawed by the criminal law, and become an actus reus. The key players
in this process are summarised by Lacey et al. (2003: 78–80). First, the public and
their opinions play a part, not just in their voting for politicians and governments
which introduce new laws, and the importance attached to appealing to public
opinion on acceptable and unacceptable behaviour by politicians (Bottoms 1995),
but also in terms of how they report some crimes more than others, perceive
some kinds of behaviour as being more dangerous than others (Lacey 1995) and
fear certain types of criminal behaviour more than others (Hope and Sparks
2000). The media also plays a crucial part in both shaping public opinion on
crime and reporting it (Jewkes 2004). Secondly, Parliament, judges, magistrates
and their clerks all create and interpret the meaning of actus reus in practice.
Thirdly, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice introduce and develop new
criminal laws and policies.
Fourthly, the power of the Attorney-General and the Director for Public
Prosecutions to allow particular types of prosecution to be brought gives them
power to determine what is and is not actus reus. Next, the Lord Chief Justice,
the senior criminal judge in England and Wales, plays a key role in developing
sentencing policy as well as hearing criminal appeal cases – both of these help
to determine the shape of actus reus. Finally, pressure groups such as Liberty,
the pro-human rights organisation, the Law Commission, and the Association
of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) all put forward their own views on how the
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22 General principles of criminal law

criminal law should look. All of these different individuals and agencies play a
key part in the development of actus reus and how it is applied in criminal justice
practice.
How accurately do the crime statistics that are available from the government
(and other sources) reflect the number of ‘actus reuses’ which are committed in
England and Wales? Crime statistics are published annually by the Home Office.
They are taken from two main sources: police statistics – the crimes recorded by
the police and then divided up into different types of offence; and the British
Crime Survey (BCS) – the results of a survey asking a selected group of adults in
England and Wales about their experiences of being victims of crime over the
previous year (Coleman and Moynihan 1996). Police statistics for 2006/07 recorded
around 5 million crimes in England and Wales, while BCS figures for the same
time period recorded around 11 million crimes, a decrease of 42% from the peak
BCS figure in 1995 (Thorpe et al. 2007: 18).
These crime statistics are often portrayed as being an accurate representation of
all the crime, or all of the ‘actus reuses’, that exist in England and Wales at any
given time – for example, by the tabloid press – but the reality is very different.
As Mayhew (2007) points out, not only do the police not record all of the crime
that is reported to them – because they feel it is too minor or too vague to be put
into a specific category of crime, for example – but also there is a substantial ‘dark
figure’ of crime which is not reported to the police at all. Also, there have been
changes in what crime is actually counted by police – only ‘notifiable offences’ are
included. For example, in 1998, common assaults were counted as ‘notifiable
offences’ for the first time, and each crime was recorded individually for each
victim rather than recording only the most serious of a series of crimes between
the same offender and victim. Both of these changes had the effect of increasing
the amount of crime in the police statistics (Jones 2005: 62). As a result, there is
a clear gap between the criminal law and what is known about when it is broken
in the criminal justice process, in terms of police statistics.
The British Crime Survey also has its weaknesses in terms of how accurately it
measures crime. While the BCS does pick up some of the ‘dark figure’ of crime
which is not reported to the police, there are several other categories of crime
which it does not cover – for example, crimes committed against children,
‘victimless’ crimes such as drug-dealing, and crimes against businesses (Maguire
2007: 268). As a result, neither the BCS nor the police statistics can measure the
full extent of actus reus being committed. They simply give a partial picture of it,
in different ways (because of the different sources of data and the different cate-
gories of crime the data is broken down into). Like crime itself, crime statistics are
social constructions, and what is counted ‘in’ or ‘out’ can and does change over
time. This supports the view that both crime and crime statistics reflect not only
changes in society’s views on what should and should not be criminalised, and
liberal views on the maximisation of individual people’s freedom to live their lives
as they wish, but also the interests of the powerful and their attempts to hold on
to their position of power in society (Lacey 2007).
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Actus reus 23

STUDY EXERCISE 2.4

Since the BCS picks up more crime than the police-recorded crime statistics, is there any
point in continuing to collect the police statistics? Explain your answer.

The next section of the chapter considers the relationship between actus reus
and the police, as an example of the role played by actus reus in the criminal
justice process.

Example II: actus reus, the police1 and PACE

This subsection of the chapter examines how the public police use actus reus in
criminal justice practice.

Actus reus and the police: PACE powers and the ‘gap’ between
actus reus and criminal justice
The power of the police to intervene in people’s lives to enforce the criminal law,
in terms of powers to stop, search, arrest, detain and interrogate those it suspects
of committing an actus reus, is largely governed by the Police and Criminal
Evidence Act 1984 (hereafter ‘PACE’). PACE sets out the police’s powers in leg-
islation, and widened many of them (Ashworth and Redmayne 2005: 9), but also
introduced formal ‘rights’ for defendants for the first time, attempting to reach a
balance between crime control and due process.
For example, s. 1 of PACE allows police officers to stop and search persons and
vehicles if they have a reasonable suspicion that they will find either stolen or
prohibited articles, but PACE Code of Practice A gives protection against its abuse
by police. For example, stops and searches must be based on objective evidence,
and cannot be carried out merely as a result of prejudice on age, gender, racial or
other grounds (Home Office 2005a: para. 2.2). Under s. 110 of the Serious
Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which replaces s. 24 of PACE, a police offi-
cer can arrest someone without a warrant for any offence which that person is
committing or about to commit, or for any offence which the officer reasonably
suspects that person is committing or about to commit. But these powers can only
be used where a police officer has reasonable grounds for believing that one of a
list of reasons applies, including preventing the suspect from causing injury or
damage. PACE Code of Practice G emphasises that the use of the power of arrest
must be necessary, and that officers must consider whether less intrusive ways of

1
It should be noted that writers such as Zedner (2004) see ‘policing’ as involving a wider range of
groups and organisations than the public police, including policing activities by the general public, and
by private policing and security firms. This discussion focuses only on the public police, what is known
about their criminal law enforcement practice, and how it relates to the law itself.
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24 General principles of criminal law

achieving their objectives can be used instead (Home Office 2005b: para. 1.3).
Police also have the basic right to detain suspects (PACE s. 41ff.) and question
them (s. 66) but, again, PACE limits these powers in various ways. Suspects must
be taken to a police station as soon as possible after being arrested. Once they
are at the station, they should be brought to a custody officer as soon as is prac-
ticable, and suspects can only be detained for a maximum of 36 hours before
either being charged or released (Criminal Justice Act 2003 s. 7, amending PACE
ss. 41–42). If more time is required, the police can apply to a magistrates’ court
to detain the suspect for further ‘blocks’ of 36 hours, up to a maximum of 96
hours (PACE ss. 43–44). Throughout the custody period, the suspect’s detention
should be reviewed by a custody officer (i.e. a senior police officer), after six
hours initially, and then every nine hours after that.
There has been a great deal of debate among criminologists about how well
PACE works in terms of balancing crime control and due process. One body of
critical research has argued that PACE has done very little to close the gap
between criminal law and criminal justice in terms of the response to actus reuses
that the police are aware of. McConville et al. (1991) argued that PACE had very
little impact on the police’s behaviour in terms of stretching the concept of crim-
inal behaviour in the form of actus reus. Instead, the police’s ‘working rules’, or
patterns of using their informal discretion, were what mattered in terms of how
the criminal law was used. These working rules were based around the ‘crime
control’ approach to criminal justice, whereby obtaining as many convictions as
possible was prioritised, even if this meant some innocent people being convicted
along the way. They pointed out that the police were a prosecution agency, and
aimed to construct a case for the prosecution focusing on evidence that pointed to
guilt, rather than all available evidence (including evidence that suggested
innocence). They argued, as a result, that detention of suspects was automatically
authorised, as custody officers tended not to question what other officers claimed,
and that suspects were either informed of their rights at the police station in a
way that they did not understand, or were not informed of their rights at all
(ibid.). They also highlighted the key role of confession evidence in the process of
crime control, since this removes or greatly reduces the need for supporting evi-
dence indicating guilt (Sanders and Young 2006: 273) as well removing the need
for the case to go to trial at court (which in turn saves time and money). On this
view, the way in which the police uses actus reus in practice could breach s. 6 of
the Human Rights Act, which requires them to comply with the ECHR, because
of the challenges to Article 3 (the right not to be treated inhumanely, which could
be threatened by aggressive interrogation tactics) and Article 5 (the right to
liberty, which could be threatened by deliberately keeping suspects in custody in
an attempt to obtain confessions).
On the other hand, other criminologists believe that while PACE has faced
problems in reducing wrongful use of police discretionary powers, and thereby
reducing the gap between actus reus and its accurate detection in criminal justice,
it has had a positive impact on police practices. Brown (1997), for example,
argues that in the first 10 years of PACE’s operation, there was an increase in the
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Actus reus 25

percentage of suspects receiving free legal advice – to around one-third of all

suspects. He also claims that the use of illegal tactics to extract confessions or
incriminating evidence appeared to have declined during this time, and that the
tape-recording of interviews had become standard practice. This suggests that
PACE has not only reduced the amount of police discretion, but has also led to
police using their powers to reduce miscarriages of justice and unfair tactics.
Dixon (1997) points out that PACE has had some effects, such as the fact that
suspects are almost always informed of their rights on arrival at police station, and
so it is overstating things to claim, as McConville et al. (1991) do, that law can do
very little to change police culture, attitudes and behaviour. Maguire (2002),
meanwhile, while acknowledging the difficulties PACE has had in changing usage
of police discretion in practice – for example, in terms of implementing indepen-
dent checks on police activity while detaining and questioning suspects – points
out that PACE has been valuable in introducing a clear legal structure for police
activities which was lacking before its implementation. Morgan (1995) also criti-
cises the arguments of McConville et al., claiming that their study deliberately
highlights evidence which shows the police (and PACE’s influence) in a negative
light, and plays down evidence which suggests that PACE had made a difference
to police behaviour in their study.

STUDY EXERCISE 2.5

Given the research evidence on PACE discussed in this subsection, do you think current
government proposals to allow the police to detain terrorism suspects for 42 days without
charge are necessary to fight back against serious crime, or a dangerous limitation of civil
liberties which could lead to more miscarriages of justice? Give reasons for your answer.

Actus reus and the police: causation and criminal investigation

Causation, as shown above, is an essential element in investigating and detecting the
actus reus of crimes, especially result crimes. In doing these activities, police must gather
evidence that particular suspects have caused an outcome which is prohibited by the
criminal law, satisfying the factual causation principles which were discussed earlier in
this chapter. There are a range of different types of evidence which the police can use
to build a case. Newburn (2007: 605–6) lists the main categories of forensic evidence:

• Fingerprints – either impressions in soft materials, visible fingerprints (e.g. blood or ink
stains containing prints), or prints left on a surface (e.g. glass);
• DNA – taken from various sources (e.g. skin or blood), and recovered by swabbing or
scraping stains, or by recovering an item suspected to contain DNA;
• The National DNA database which has now been set up.

These add to other types of evidence which the police can gather, such as
ballistic evidence to show whether a gun has been fired, documentary evidence
such as letters, and ‘real’ evidence, that is objects which are relevant as evidence.
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26 General principles of criminal law

There is therefore a wide range of types of evidence which the police can use to
establish that an actus reus has been committed, particularly since the establish-
ment of the National DNA database in 1995. On 31 March 2006, the database
contained 3,785,571 samples, making it the largest DNA database in the world
(Home Office 2006). Section 10 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 amends s. 63
of PACE to allow the police to take DNA samples from anyone who is arrested
for a recordable offence – not just those who are charged or convicted. The
increased power to gather evidence even from those who have not been convicted
of an offence has arguably made criminal investigation – and proving substantial
and operative factual and legal causation – easier for the police. Government
statistics show that in 2004/05, a further 15,732 crimes were detected as a result
of further investigations linked to the original case in which DNA was recovered,
and the National Database provided the police with 3,000 case matches per month
on average (Home Office 2005c).
Research such as this suggests that new techniques of evidence-gathering are
closing the gap between actus reuses which are committed and criminal justice.
For example, they enable the police to solve ‘cold cases’ where crimes have been
committed years before, but for which no one was convicted, such as the so-called
‘Wearside Jack’ case in which a phone hoaxer misled police who were investigat-
ing the Yorkshire Ripper murders. However, no evidence is 100% reliable in terms
of from where or from whom it came. This is the case whether the evidence in
question is ‘traditional’ evidence, such as handwriting or firearms examination, or
even apparently more exact sources of evidence, such as fingerprints and DNA,
which are often portrayed by those using them as unique and unproblematic
(Broeders 2007). An example of DNA evidence leading to an innocent person
being wrongly accused of committing an actus reus is the case of Raymond Easton,
who was charged with burglary in 1999 after his DNA sample matched one taken
at the crime scene on six test points, even though it was physically impossible for
him to have committed the crime.
It is therefore clear that while advances in evidence-gathering technology have
created new opportunities for the police to establish causation, and therefore to
match actus reuses with the people who committed them, there is still scope for
‘wrong turnings’ in the establishment of evidence in a case. The strength and reli-
ability of evidence are also key questions when considering the role and practice
of the Crown Prosecution Service, discussed in the next section.

Example III: actus reus and the Crown Prosecution Service

The Crown Prosecution Service (hereafter ‘CPS’) decides whether or not a case
should proceed to the court stage after the police have charged a suspect, and
selects appropriate charges in cases which it does take to court. The police
consult their local CPS branch before deciding whether or not to charge a suspect,
and pass on details of the case to the CPS. The local Principal Crown Prosecutor
then allocates the case to a member of their team, and only the Principal Crown
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Actus reus 27

Prosecutor has the power to decide whether or not to continue with the case. Next,
the CPS must provide a constant review of the progress made with each case, in
terms of the quantity and quality of evidence obtained. Finally, the CPS makes the
decision whether or not to prosecute, using the Code for Crown Prosecutors
(e.g. Crown Prosecution Service 2004) as a guide. They use two key tests: whether
or not there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction if the
case reaches court, and whether or not prosecution is in the public interest. The
CPS’s task, in principle, is to ‘close the gap’ between actus reus in the law and
criminal justice, in two ways: by ensuring that there is enough evidence to prove
that the right person is matched up with an actus reus, and ensuring that an appro-
priate offence charge is found to match the criminal behaviour committed.
HM Crown Prosecution Inspectorate (2005) found that in 2004/05, 98% of
prosecuted cases in England and Wales met the evidential test, and that 99% of
cases met the public interest test. However, other evidence suggests that the CPS
faces operational and institutional problems which limit its effectiveness in bring-
ing actus reus and criminal justice closer together. One problem is the Code for
Crown Prosecutors itself. In theory, it is supposed to provide all of the guidance
that CPS workers need to make the decision on whether or not to prosecute. Yet
Hoyano et al. (1997) found that the language used in the Code has become more
and more simplified each time that a new version of the Code is published. They
identified the lack of clarity in explanations of the policies CPS workers should
follow as a key factor for their finding that the Code had very little impact on
decisions made by the CPS day to day.
The tests used to decide whether or not to prosecute have also been criticised as
unhelpful. The Code (CPS 2004) defines the ‘realistic prospect of conviction’ test
as being an objective test: is a court more likely than not to convict on the basis of
the evidence available, based on the admissibility and reliability of that evidence?
Yet this test oversimplifies the wide discretion which courts have to decide on
admissibility of evidence, and to decide the facts of the case in different ways.
Similarly, the ‘public interest’ test hides the reality of the greater number of
evidential factors in favour of prosecution than against it, the presumption in
favour of prosecution unless there are factors present which are against prosecution,
and the CPS reliance on (sometimes very limited) police information on whether
prosecution would be in the public interest or not (McConville et al. 1991).
Other research indicates that the CPS takes cases which are evidentially weak
to court more often than the evidence from HM Crown Prosecution Inspectorate
(see above) suggests. In Baldwin’s (1997) study, early warning signs about prose-
cutions ending in acquittal in court were noticed by the CPS in 87.3% of the
judge-ordered acquittals,2 73.1% of the judge-directed acquittals,3 and 58.8% of
acquittals by a jury in the Crown Court. Problems have also arisen regarding the

2
Where a judge orders that the defendant is acquitted before the jury has been sworn in at the start
of a Crown Court trial – for example, because the CPS has offered no evidence to the court.
3
Where a judge directs the jury to acquit the defendant during the course of a trial.
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28 General principles of criminal law

accountability of the CPS for its decisions. Ashworth and Redmayne (2005) show
that weaknesses have been found in terms of recording CPS decisions, and in
terms of communication of vital information from person to person within
the CPS.

STUDY EXERCISE 2.6

Read the CPS explanation on their website of their decision not to prosecute any police
officers in connection with the death of Frank Ogboru on 26 September 2006 (at
www.cps.gov.uk/news/press_releases/132_08). Applying the two CPS prosecution tests, do
you agree with the CPS decision reached in this case? Explain your answer.

The next section of this chapter considers how victims of crime who report
actus reuses to criminal justice agencies are dealt with by the police and CPS.

Example IV: actus reus, victims of crime and criminal justice

Actus reus, victims and the police

The reporting of crime to criminal justice agencies by victims is vital in ‘closing the
gap’ between the occurrence of the actus reus and the prosecution, conviction and
punishment of people for breaking the law, since most crimes come to the police’s
attention via the public, and victims of crime play a vital role in giving evidence in
court which forms the basis of successful prosecution. As the discussion of crime
statistics above showed, there is a gap between the number of actus reuses experi-
enced by victims and the number which are recorded by the police. The BCS indi-
cates that when a ‘comparable subset’ of BCS and police crime categories is
considered, only 42% of comparable crime included in the BCS is reported to the
police, and only 30% of comparable crime is recorded by the police. Clarkson et al.
(1994) identified key reasons for victims not reporting crimes to the police as
including the victim’s perception that their crime is not detectable, the victim’s
reluctance to have their own conduct scrutinised, and fear of reprisals.
Some criminologists (e.g. Shapland et al. 1985) argue that the police have tradi-
tionally been slow to recognise the needs of victims who report their crimes, espe-
cially victims who are vulnerable because of their age, gender, ethnicity, or class.
Reeves and Mulley (2000) found that the support and information that police
provided to victims varied greatly from police force to police force, depending
on other police work and priorities, such as the detection and investigation of
crime. Research done into the impact of other police-led initiatives designed to
make reporting crime easier for victims has also had mixed results. For example,
the Second Victim’s Charter (1996) introduced a pilot victim statement scheme,
which allowed selected victims to make a statement to police explaining how
the crime committed against them had affected their lives. This statement could
later be used in court. Sanders et al. (2001) found that of 148 victims who made
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Actus reus 29

statements, 77% of victims thought making a statement was the right thing to do
at the start of the criminal process, compared with 57% at the end. Sanders et al.
concluded from these findings that victims experienced a great deal of dissatisfac-
tion as a result of victim statements, and had often had their expectations falsely
raised by statements. However, other research has found more positive effects for
victim statements. Chalmers et al.’s (2007) evaluation of a Scottish pilot project
based around a written statement made by the victim to the police and passed on
to the judge hearing the victim’s court case found that while only 14% of eligible
victims made a statement, 86% of the victims taking part thought that making a
statement was the right thing to do at the end of their case. These conflicting
research studies show the impact of police discretion – at individual, force and
national level – in deciding how far victims’ needs during the giving of information
about an actus reus will be met, and also show the importance of good communi-
cation between police and victims about the processes of criminal justice.

STUDY EXERCISE 2.7

Read the articles by Sanders et al. (2001) and Chalmers et al. (2007). On the basis of the
research findings reported in these two articles, would you make a victim statement if you
had the opportunity to do so?

Actus reus, victims and the CPS

Measures have recently been introduced that try to improve communication
between the CPS and victims, and aim to make victims a central part of criminal
justice. For example, CPS Codes for Crown Prosecutors from 2000 onwards (e.g. CPS
2004) state that the CPS must take the victim’s views into account when deciding
whether or not to prosecute in a particular case, and the Attorney-General’s
Guidelines on the Acceptance of Pleas, issued to all CPS workers, states that the
victim’s interests must also be considered before the prosecution accepts a guilty
plea from a defendant in court (Attorney-General’s Office 2005).
However, the victim’s interest must be balanced against the CPS’s main two
tests for deciding whether or not to prosecute a case – that is the public interest in
prosecution and the prospect of a realistic conviction. These tests will take prior-
ity over the interests of the victim and, if there is a conflict between the two, would
be decisive in reaching a decision on prosecution. Also, as Sanders (2002) points
out, these guidelines do not cover victims whose cases are handled by other pros-
ecution agencies, such as the Health and Safety Executive, rather than by the CPS.

Discussion and Conclusions

Actus reus has been developed and portrayed as a way of holding individual
people responsible for behaviour that the criminal law states is wrong. The
emphasis on acts being voluntary and requiring mens rea to go with them, for
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30 General principles of criminal law

example, points to the criminal law view of actus reus being a liberal one – only
blaming people for behaviour which has been a conscious decision to break the
law, allowing all other conduct to go unpunished, and allowing individuals to
remain free from any social or political interference as long as they do not break
the law (Norrie 2001). This also fits in with the law and economics approach,
which emphasises that people commit crimes of their own free will.
However, actus reus can also involve being somewhere or possessing something
which the criminal law will not allow, even where, as in Larsonneur or Winzar,
there was no voluntary decision to go to the ‘forbidden’ place. Similarly, the crim-
inal law also punishes people for omissions, in certain limited circumstances – for
example, where someone fails to protect a vulnerable person in their care (Downes,
Stone and Dobinson), or where someone does not do what their job requires them
to do (Pittwood, Dytham). None of these scenarios would be punished under an
entirely liberal criminal law. Instead, they offer evidence that actus reus can also be
used paternalistically, to protect vulnerable people in society from being harmed
by others who do not do what is expected of them. But these social uses of actus
reus, which depend on ties between people being wrongly broken, are hidden by
the general liberal principles commonly associated with actus reus (Norrie 2001).
If causation is re-examined, actus reus is again not as liberal as it first appears.
Factual, ‘but for’ causation is a liberal idea – people are only held responsible for
their actus reus if the prohibited outcome would not have happened if they had
not done what they did. If D voluntarily changes the course of V’s life, for exam-
ple by killing or injuring V, then it is right to hold D responsible in the criminal
law for what happens to V as a result of their actions, unless a third person’s
voluntary act intervenes to break the chain (Hart and Honoré 1985). However,
as Norrie (2001) points out, this does not take into account the social circum-
stances that shape the decisions and actions made and done by individual people
in their everyday lives. It does not try to understand why the individual has done
what they have done.
Considering legal causation, the liberalism of actus reus is limited even further.
The courts have decided that doctors should not be held liable for breaking the
causation chain between D and V, even where they treat V very badly (Smith,
Cheshire), unless their treatment was ‘palpably bad’ (Jordan). This shows that
actus reus is about something more than protecting the vulnerable in society. It is
also about regulating the social order, and making moral judgements about the
behaviour of certain types of ‘socially acceptable’ people, regardless of their lia-
bility under liberal principles (Norrie 2001). Overall, then, the core of actus reus
may claim to be liberal and individualistic, but in fact this hides a variety of crim-
inal law aims, some of which contradict each other and promote divisions and
discrimination in society (Norrie 2005).
Turning now to criminal justice, there is a considerable gap between every actus
reus that occurs in England and Wales and the response to them from criminal
justice. As well as crime itself being a social construction, the criminal statistics
that claim to measure the number of crimes are in no way an accurate representation
of crime, due to limitations on what is reported to and recorded by police and the
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Actus reus 31

BCS. Again, therefore, the liberal and positivist view of crime statistics as being an
accurate picture of crime hides a range of social issues which decide which actus
reus will be included in criminal statistics and which will not.
In terms of how the police and the CPS use the rules on actus reus set out in
the liberally-centred criminal law, and how they use the rules for deciding when
to use the power of criminal justice against the public, there is a body of evidence,
spearheaded by McConville et al. (1991), that argues that the legal rules (such as
PACE), which claim to structure what the police and the CPS do, have very little
impact in practice. The evidence of McConville et al. suggests that police and CPS
work is more about crime control than due process and human rights. Others,
such as Choongh (1997), argue that the police use their power to extend social
control and social exclusion as far as possible. However, work such as that by
Dixon (1997) argues that due process-based law can have, and has had, an impact
on criminal justice practice by structuring that practice according to a set of rules,
and reducing the misuse of power. This suggests that criminal justice, like crimi-
nal law, has a conflicting set of aims in terms of how it uses actus reus. Sometimes
due process wins, but at other times criminal justice practice is characterised by
the crime control or power models. On this view, criminal justice is best charac-
terised as ‘a related but not entirely co-ordinated set of practices geared to the
construction and maintenance of social order’ (Lacey 1994: 28). This conflict and
confusion is particular significant for victims, who have a set of needs of their own
when they inform criminal justice of an actus reus that has affected their lives, but
who must fit in with the wider aims of the criminal justice process as reflected in
the daily practice of the police and the CPS – aims which can be very different
from their own, and the conflict over which can lead to victims’ expectations
being frustrated in their dealings with the police and CPS.
The next chapter applies the same analytical approach to mens rea, in terms of
its legal and criminal justice context.

FURTHER READING

Allen, M. (2007), Criminal Law (9th edn): chapter 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ashworth, A., and Redmayne, M. (2005), The Criminal Process (3rd edn). Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dignan, J. (2005), Understanding Victims and Restorative Justice. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.
Sanders, A., and Young, R. (2006), Criminal Justice (3rd edn). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Simester, A.P., and Sullivan, R. (2007), Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine (3rd edn): chapter 4.
Oxford: Hart.